IN A CONFERENCE room at Nanking University we were seated around a long table. Two girl students placed before us mugs of hot tea. It was late November, 1972. Windows wide open. No heat yet in the University buildings. The hardy Chinese seemed not to need it, But we Americans now and then wrapped our hands around our tea mugs.

There were about 30 of us; 15 members of our tour group, including school and college teachers, meeting with administrators and professors of the University, several student representatives and interpreters.

Nanking University, we learned founded in 1902 as a teachers' college, was a stronghold of conservatism starting the late Ching Dynasty and afterward under the demonstration of the determining. But in the period between liberation (1949) and the started the Cultural Revolution (1966) tow basically lines of through developed as to government science, education, indeed all aspects of life.

Liu Shao-chi, then a leading Communist, urged the adoption of Western and Soviet ways of organizing society. He was for building an elite, who would tell the masses what to do. He favored much higher pay for skilled workers and intellectuals than for the ordinary worker. To get out production, he relied on material incentives and individual prestige rather than on serving the people.

Mao Tse-tung's line was quite its support. He called upon every one to be self reliant to contribute his own practical experience toward problem solving and decision making to found theory upon practice, and to achieve what would normally be considered impossible. He alerted the people to the dangers of a growing bureaucracy. His famous big-character poster. "Bombard the Head Quarteriers," urged the youth to bombard with their criticisms even "the top Party persons in authority taking the capitalist road." This meant, first of all, Liu Shao-chi.

What was the situation at the University? "For one thing," one of the administrators told us, "the contents of our courses were copied from those of the Soviet Union. The curriculum was long, the reading matter heavy and of minor importance. Students learned a great deal about ancient China but very little about modern China. They acquired a general view of geology but didn't learn much about the rich mineral resources of our own country."

Many of them had come to college healthy and eager to learn, but as a result of the five-year program, had developed eye trouble and neurasthenia.

For centuries Chinese intellectuals had regarded manual labor as beneath their dignity. Even after Liberation, some students, although of working-class families, refused to recognize their parents.

This naturally made a poor impression on peasants and industrial workers, who then made unfavorable comments about the students and the University. Partly because of such comments and partly because the more politically minded students themselves sensed as lack of relented in their courses they began to see that it was they who must take a leading part in "the struggle between the two lines.

One of the first expressions of student revolt was the appearamce of big-character posters everywhere on the campus, and there were many hot debates especially on how to transfrom the irrational system of education.

In Chine most of the people are peasants, are mainly in justified workers. Yet in the past almost nobody from these two groups was admitted to the University. So changes were certainly needed in admission requirements.

As a result of the Cultural Revolution candidates are now admitted as follows; the individual concerned must have graduated from high school, and must then have spent at least two years in agriculture or industrial work or in the Army, He lets it be known among his comrades that he feels he could better serve the people, if he had a university education, They discuss his qualifications-moral, physical, and intellectual-and if they consider him outstanding, they recommend him to their leadership, The University makes the final decision.

"Of the 1000 freshmen now enrolled here," we were told, "27 per cent are women. We say that men and women have equal rights, but tradition still holds us back. Probably the percentage of women students here will gradually increase.

"Our students have done outstanding work in agriculture, industry, or administration before they come here; and they bring with them the hopes and wishes of the masses, who cherish them. So they come to their studies with enthusiasm and a desire to serve the people.

"The Government, too, has faith in them, and pays all or most of their University expenses, according to their need. They all live a and get room, board and medical care free.